It is a peculiar coincidence that Italy, which has never yet produced a great symphonic writer, should be able to point to Giovanni Sammartini as the earliest exponent of this form in the modern sense. For already in 1734 his first orchestral symphony was produced in Milan where he was conductor. At that date Haydn was but two years old. Of course Sammartini obtained no such results as did his great German successor, but he at least suggested the proper course by which clearer form and healthier orchestration might be secured, and his instrumentation abounds in new and interesting traits. In addition to having written a host of symphonies, of which twenty-four were published, his labors in other branches of composition were prodigious. Incidentally, his experience as a writer of string quartets taught him the value of the viola, in consequence of which, independent parts for that instrument as advocated by Scarlatti are likewise to be found in his orchestral scores. The value of Gossec's persistent energy in both building up the standard of already existing orchestral organizations and in establishing a new one is twofold. For not only was the French public educated to encourage home talent to seek expression in independent orchestral language, but also by affording these same French aspirants frequent opportunity for hearing the masterpieces of foreign contemporaries was the French style of writing for the orchestra immensely strengthened and broadened. Considering the close affinity that bound Gossec's birthplace to France, he may well be regarded as a representative of the country which he had adopted as his own. As the founder of the first genuine symphonic orchestra in France, he himself set the example as a diligent composer of symphonies and string quartets, although, unfortunately, the former were at first not favorably received. Nevertheless, his perseverance eventually won the day, especially after he had been crowned with new laurels as an operatic composer; and at the time of the Gluck-Piccini controversy, some of his later symphonies finally obtained for him that recognition to which he had aspired. Lavoix avers that Gossec was the first French writer to make use of the clarinet. Again, its introduction into the Opéra in 1772--just in time to be of service to Gluck--is apparently authenticated by Francoeur. Since, however, the clarinet was already embodied in Rameau's scoring, the present writer desires to call attention to these obvious discrepancies. At all events, we know that the resources of the clarinet were developed by both Gossec and Gluck, even though at that time only an incomplete scale in the keys of C and F could be obtained from the instrument. Gossec was not conspicuously original either in instrumental form or in orchestration, even though his Requiem, for example, does contain instances of interesting scoring. Neither does the fact that his first symphony preceded Haydn's by five years credit him with being